" Layamon employed less alliteration than is found in Anglo-Saxon poetry.

In Low-Latin, indeed, we find occasionally alliteration, rhyme, and a fixed number of syllables, but these novelties are obviously of foreign origin, and date from the time when the Romans borrowed them from the nations which they called barbarous.

Out of the répertoire of her family names she had fished up this alliteration, and "Bertie" was reserved for those behind the scenes.

Footnote 4: Beowulf, ll. 26-50, a free rendering to suggest the alliteration of the original.

These lyrics are often lacking in polish; the tendency to use alliteration as an ornament has nothing to do with such occasional troubadour examples of the trick as may be found in Peire d'Auvergne.